Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 by Rebecca Crowley

Author:Rebecca Crowley [Crowley, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Military, homecoming, Army, small town, class divide, contemporary romance, novella, trilogy, m/f
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Grady’s stomach somersaulted with apprehension as he pulled up beside the curb, already feeling embarrassingly out of place as he parked the dusty bulk of his truck at the end of a line of late-model, high-end SUVs and sedans. Laurel flashed him a smile almost as bright as the cloudless blue sky as she slid down from the cab. He didn’t even attempt to return it as he got out and slammed the door shut behind him.

Although he’d told himself it was a thank-you gesture to her brother, the real reason he had agreed to attend the block party was to show Laurel how impossibly mismatched they were. Once she saw how he stuck out like a sore thumb among her high-class friends, she’d have to realize that they could never work. It would be painful, and he was going to miss her something fierce, but he’d come to the conclusion that it was better to get this over with now. He was falling for her too hard and too fast, and her inevitable rejection would only hurt more the longer he waited.

At least, that had been his plan until about two hours ago. The faint sounds of music and children’s squealing laughter grew louder as they followed the sidewalk past big houses on generous lots, but he was so distracted by the frantic machinations of his brain that he barely noticed the fancy neighborhood around them.

He wasn’t sure what had made him call Laurel the night before. He’d spent a long day ripping up the carpets in his house to expose the hundred-year-old oak floorboards beneath. It was a sweaty, heavy, dirty job, and he was so exhausted that he barely registered picking up the phone and dialing her number until her voice chimed a greeting on the other end.

“I wanted to ask you something about tomorrow.”

He cringed at the wary pause before her reply—she was clearly bracing herself for him to back out. “Yeah?”

“There’s a Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Preston tomorrow. I was going to pick you up afterward, but then I thought you might want to come.”

“I’d love to,” she affirmed, and although he spent the rest of the night and most of the next morning wondering what on earth had possessed him to ask, when he pulled up to the fort cemetery shortly before midday he was glad to have her at his side.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to feel. It was his first Memorial Day out of uniform, and he wanted to pay his respects to those he’d served with who’d fallen so recently from Echo Company. He thought he’d be sad, angry, bitter—so he was surprised when, more than anything, he felt out of place. It was incredibly strange to stand in the audience of civilians, facing the major general head-on as the officer gave a brief speech rather than sitting behind him. He hung at the back of the crowd, shifting uncomfortably as they laid the wreath and raised the

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